MMO community Aeria Games (Last Chaos, Dream of Mirror Online) has announced that it is to "gift more than $5 million dollars to its valued community"—which sounds insane and unlikely, but when you see what they're actually doing, which is giving every single member of its community a "surprise amount" of virtual currency it makes a little more sense.

Users will receive special codes via e-mail to redeem for Aeria Points, which can be used to purchase items in any of the company's free-to-play games. And if this still strikes you as particularly generous, it's well worth noting that according to their own data, Aeria Games' community numbers more than five million members to date, which means they could be handing out as little as a dollar worth of virtual cash per user.

Still! A piddling amount of free money is better than no money, I'm sure many users would say.

Aeria Games has over ten MMO titles currently on offer, and have promised that a "minimum of ten more" are to be launched in 2009—including the eagerly anticipated Shin Megami Tensei: Online, currently in closed beta.